Floyd Mayweather returned from retirement after stopping Ricky Hatton to face Juan Manuel Marquez in 2009, but whilst Mayweather came off a two-year layoff, Marquez had been training, albeit in an unusual way.
Floyd Mayweather faced Ricky Hatton in 2007, stopping ‘The Hit-Man’ in the tenth round, before taking two years off from the sport.
Mayweather appeared to be done with boxing but returned in 2009 against Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather’s record at the time was 39-0, while Marquez sat at 50-4-1.
Marquez’s one draw came against Manny Pacquiao, though Pacquiao defeated him in their rematch. Mayweather did eventually beat Pacquiao too, but Roy Jones Jr. believes he doesn’t deserve credit for it.
Marquez was not to be underestimated, and it seemed like he would do anything to beat Mayweather, even something disgusting.
Juan Manuel Marquez drank his own urine to prepare for Floyd Mayweather
Ahead of their fight, it was revealed that Marquez had been consuming his own urine as part of his training for the Mayweather fight.
Marquez claimed this practice helped his body retain nutrients that are expended during training.
This strange tactic would not do much good, however, as Marquez would lose a near-shut-out decision to Mayweather come fight night, a great deal removed from Mayweather’s toughest test, which came at the hands of Emanuel Augustus.
The scorecards read 120-107, 118-109, 119-108, and Marquez was comprehensively beaten.
This came seven years after Mayweather had the worst spar of his career against Paul Spadafora, who gave a far better account of himself than Marquez did on fight night.
Canelo Alvarez also experimented with his diet ahead of world title fight
Canelo Alvarez, who only held one loss at the time to Mayweather, is reported to have switched to a vegan diet ahead of his light-heavyweight fight with Dmitry Bivol.
Canelo’s wife has been vegan for years, and the Mexican champ believed it may give him some benefit as he dared to be great at the higher weight.
Canelo lost a unanimous decision to Bivol, who is now the undisputed light-heavyweight champion of the world after dethroning Artur Beterbiev, and switched immediately back to a non-vegan diet.